October 15, 2001 -

ARROGANT ANTHRAXERY!

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NBC has the Andrea cure; the bush-league Bush-baiters seek cover.

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And more. Now, the details...

NEW YORK -- An idea for NBC. Rather than search all the mail for possible anthrax-laden missives, why not just expose every piece of mail to NBC's resident on-air scorpion, Andrea Mitchell. That should kill anthrax spores, putting the aura of menace surrounding Ms. Mitchell to good use.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Even bush-league Bush-hater Molly Ivins is backing off, temporarily, from her trademark silly savaging of President George W. Bush. Ivins' last column never once used her favorite nickname for Bush, which is "Shrub." The Texas socialist writer, however, still couldn't bring herself to use "President" in front of GWB's name.

An Ivins Austin soulmate in left-wing brain death is Congressman Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Austin. Doggett is among the most vicious and partisan lefties in the Congress, masking his mean streak with a smiling public face. Doggett has gone so far as to join Ivins in supporting the U.S. military in its current endeavors, but the "old Doggett" will return some day, some way. A hint comes in a television commercial Doggett cobbled together, in which he makes a perfunctory denunciation of the terror horrors, then spends the rest of the time calling for Americans to support "diversity."

NEW YORK -- Maureen Dowd, ranking resident psychotic at the New Dork Times, is slipping farther into babbling madness. Witness this from her Sunday column: "The president, an Andover cheerleader, was doing his best to pull the nation out of its despond. He was suddenly engaged, on top of the issues, reflecting our pain and puzzlement. His message was, by necessity, schizophrenic." George W. Bush has been "engaged" for years. Airheads of the Dowd/Ivins ilk only began noticing that after September 11.

NEW YORK -- Let's hope that New Dork Times writer B. Drummond Ayres Jr. doesn't get put in charge of checking baggage for airlines. Listing the "political baggage" carried by former Attorney General Janet (Stonewall) Reno, Ayres came up with the Branch Davidian raid; the Elian Gonzalez case and the fact that Reno has Parkinson's disease. Space won't allow a listing of the "baggage" he misses, but how about Stonewall's stonewalling of campaign finance investigations?

NEW YORK -- I find myself in total agreement with a statement from left-wing actor Alec Baldwin, even though Alec won't live up to his promise to leave the country now that GWB is president. Baldwin says: "...there's that weird part of me that thinks if New York got bombed again, I want to be here. I'd rather die getting bombed in a New York bombing than live some kind of shallow life somewhere else." I feel the same way about you, Alec. However, if you need a weekend vacation, Kabul is lovely this time of year.

CHAPPAQUA, New York -- Quotation from the First Scumbucket: "He's very scary. He's smart, he's rich, he's ruthless, he's bold, with a very definite political agenda." Clinton was speaking of Osama bin Laden. However, just substitute "she" for "he" and Bill has described his wife.

LOS ANGELES -- It appears that gerbil of years ago did a lot of damage to Richard Gere before the emergency-room people removed it, maybe even eating away at his brain. Quoting the kinked actor-turned-Dalai Lama fan: "If you can see them [the terrorists] as a relative who's dangerously sick and we have to give them medicine, and the medicine is love and compassion. There's nothing better." (Relax, Richard. There's no evidence that gerbils carry anthrax.)

KABUL -- Sulaiman Abu Gheith, a spokesman for Al Qaeda, said: "...there are thousands of young people who look forward to death, like Americans look forward to life." Fine with us, Sulaiman baby.

WASHINGTON -- It's good to know that someone at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars has a sense of ironic humor. That someone would be the jokester who invited Ted Turner to speak at a conference.

BOSTON -- Facing the horror of dealing with the promised 70 virgins in Heaven, one of the suicide terrorists from Sept. 11 spent Sept. 9 with a prostitute. A Boston-area cab driver said the woman, a white blonde in her early 20s, got $100 for a 20-minute hotel room tryst with one of the hijackers.

CHICAGO -- It's enough to tug at your heartstrings. There is a report from Chicago that atheists feel excluded when believers go to worship to mourn the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

TOW, Texas -- My friend, Steve, is being promoted to a district manager's job for a nationwide retail chain. Steve is a former New York City cop who lost quite a few friends among the police officers and firemen burned and buried in the World Trade Center horror. Anyway, Steve will often be on commercial airlines in his new job. He says: "If the airlines, or the sky marshals, don't frisk Middle Eastern passengers, I'll do it myself." I think you can count on that.

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: Why do some terrorist nutballs believe we might stop a war just because we mistakenly give a few of their civilians their chance to meet Allah?

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